


breath and force

by LuckyDiceKirby



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-28
Updated: 2017-12-28
Packaged: 2019-02-22 20:09:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13174305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LuckyDiceKirby/pseuds/LuckyDiceKirby
Summary: Arrell goes to find Alyosha in the forge.





	breath and force

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Yellow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yellow/gifts).



> happy birthday erin!!!!! enjoy this radical universe where arrell isn't a huge jerk ALL the time i guess

It's foolish, to ask Throndir about Alyosha. An indulgence, to think that the comparison to Fantasmo might get him to relent. But Arrell very well may be dead soon, if Throndir will not give him the book, very nearly the only thing left that matters.

“If you cared so much for him, you should have been there,” Throndir says. “I don't know where he is. Hadrian said he got--lost in that place we were. Somewhere underneath Hieron.” His eyes narrow. “And _don't_ talk about Fantasmo.”

Lost. As if Alyosha were nothing more than a hound its master had lost track of.

If Hadrian were here, Arrell might wring his neck. But he is not, and wherever Alyosha is, there is nothing Arrell can do for him. There is only the task before him. Arrell will complete it, or he will die. That is the only thing there is; that and the lingering thought of Alyosha, which Arrell cannot escape.

He ignores it, and he tries to make Throndir understand what is best.

-

Arrell feels cold. But he has long felt cold. And otherwise, the _curse_ , as the Ordenans call it, is not so difficult. It is certainly the very least of his problems.

He goes to Velas. He builds the wall of star-stuff. He gives the Disciples of Fantasmo their orders. He does his best to adjust his plans, now that he has lost the book, now that he has lost--

Everything. He is alone, thankfully, when he realizes it, when the sudden weight of the knowledge buckles his knees. He has failed. Without the book he is nothing against the Heat and the Dark, and if he is nothing against it, then neither is the rest of Hieron.

He spends a few precious minutes with his head bowed, hands clenched tight against his knees, and then he stands. If there is truly nothing, then there is only one thing left to do.

Arrell travels; he is used to travel. Its inconveniences and discomforts long ago ceased to bother him. It is just the same, even now, now that Hieron has begun to crack and break at the edges. 

The ranger had not deigned to give him good directions. He had only laughed, when Arrell asked how he had come from a lower lamina to the archives. _I don't know,_ he said. _You're supposed to be a wizard, aren't you? You tell me._ And then he had tried once again to strike Arrell down.

Arrell resists the urge to rub at his chin under its wrapping, thinking of it. He thinks instead of--not Alyosha as he is now, no. As he may not be at all. Instead he thinks of the Alyosha who lives in his memory, the one who is safe. The one who cannot be hurt, no matter what comes to pass. Who rooted himself so deeply in Arrell’s heart, a weed he could never bear to destroy.

They’d studied Hieron’s cosmology together, once. It always proved a stimulating topic--they disagreed so terribly about the origins of Hieron’s sun. And as the sun drew low in the sky Alyosha would smile, and draw Arrell away from their study with a hand on his cheek and a kiss. 

They had never discussed Hieron’s structure, the laminas that Arrell had only caught wind of in the most obscure texts. It was one of the many subjects that Arrell had kept to his own careful and private study. His discussions with Alyosha were different. Separate. Things between them only fell apart when their worlds collided, the careful barriers Arrell had put into place going to pieces. Alyosha was always too curious for his own good, and Arrell could not help but love him for it.

It is a long journey, and a difficult one, but this too Arrell is used to: he has been on many arduous journeys with uncertain destinations. He feels as if he is underwater for much of it. With each wonder he sees, each fascinating piece of Hieron’s history that he passes by without pause or comment, he becomes more and more aware of his own detachment. They hardly seem to matter. 

Once, he thinks fleetingly of all the things he will need to mention in his next letter to Alyosha. The last letter he wrote still burns, folded against his chest in a pocket of his robe. 

He does not stop long enough to write again.

And when he finally arrives, following the trail of disaster that Hadrian and his party have left behind, it is as though he can breath again for the first time in years.

Arrell wonders, as he approaches, about what could possibly have brought about the brilliant garden he began to pass through, half a mile out from the forge. How such things could grow surrounded by so much heat.

When he steps into the forge, that heat dissipates all at once. 

Arrell hardly notices, because Alyosha is there. Alyosha is alive. All else may be gone, but Alyosha is not lost. 

“Pupil,” Arrell says. His voice is nothing more than a croak. He hasn’t had much cause to use it, as of late, and his throat has not healed. 

Alyosha says nothing. He does not stop moving. With each stroke of his hammer, more green bursts forth. Distantly, Arrell realizes there is blood on the ground.

Alyosha is--somehow he is pushing back, against the Heat and the Dark. Arrell does not understand it. He cannot worry about understanding it, until Alyosha looks at him.

“Pupil.” Again, nothing. “Alyosha.” Nothing. Only the steady beat of the hammer.

It is like a theology problem Alyosha might have once teasingly set him. Arrell has always had a plan, an animating force urging him ever forward--but his only remaining plan was to find Alyosha. Now he has. And he does not know what to do.

But it is harder, as it has always been, to fall into despair in Alyosha’s presence. Arrell sinks to the ground, among the vines and grass and flowers, soft against his hands. He looks down and closes his eyes, listening to the steady rhythm of Alyosha’s work. “Do you remember,” he says slowly, “the last time we were together? Truly together. Living in the same space. It was many years ago now, wasn’t it? I would come home, every evening, and you were there, reading by candlelight. I don’t think I realized how used to it I was, until I left.”

The noise of the forge continues unabated. “I thought about leaving you a letter, before I left. Explaining my work in more detail. I was so sure that I could make you understand. But I decided it was foolishness.” Arrell swallows. “And perhaps I did not know precisely what to say.”

Clink. Clink. Clink. Arrell can suddenly not bear the noise any longer. He looks up and then must look away again just as quickly. He cannot bear the sight of Alyosha like this either: moving as if there is not a single thought in his head.

“I miss you,” Arrell says, head bowed, feeling as though the words are being dragged out of him. “I have missed you. Every wretched day, doing my work, so sure it would--and it has come to nothing, and you are gone.” He digs his fingers into the dirt. “I am sorry.”

For a moment, there is silence. Arrell looks up.

Alyosha is still holding the hammer, poised halfway into the air about the anvil. He is breathing very quickly, where before it was as steady as the hammer. And then all at once he drops the hammer and turns, his eyes wide.

“Tutor?” Alyosha asks, voice thin. And then he laughs, shaking so much with it that he has to lean back against the anvil to support himself. “Tutor, do my ears deceive me, or did you just apologize?”

Arrell cannot speak. He can only stare, some indescribable feeling filling his chest, like a bubble expanding outwards.

Alyosha laughs himself to tears. And then he comes to Arrell and falls to his knees before him, unsteady on his legs. “Tutor,” he says again. And then his brow furrows. “Tutor, you’re hurt.” He reaches out, and Arrell is not quick enough to stop him before he has touched Arrell’s face.

But it is as if Alyosha were wielding the hammer, and not his own hand. It does not succumb to the Heat and the Dark. Instead Arrell can feel, in his bones, something warm and green take root. 

“There,” Alyosha says, satisfied. “Now let me see your neck.”

Arrell unwraps the bandage and allows Alyosha to tend to him, lying with his head on Alyosha’s lap. He can barely take his eyes off of Alyosha for long enough to blink. 

“You are really here,” he says, “are you not?”

Alyosha smiles down at him, fingers warm against his cold throat. “I could ask the same of you,” he says. “But you feel real enough.” He traces the ragged edges of Arrell’s wound, and Arrell could not explain how it happened: it is no magic he is accustomed to. But when Alyosha fits a hand against his neck and bends down to kiss Arrell, he feels whole. 

After a moment, Alyosha pulls away. He looks so alive, like a paper lantern lit up from within. “I can’t abandon my work,” he says, a hint of apology in his tone. “I don’t know if I can explain it. But there’s something here. Something important.”

“Yes,” Arrell agrees. He can feel it. He takes Alyosha’s hands in his own--they are rough, the beginnings of calluses on his palm. “But first you must let me see to your hands.”

“You know, Tutor,” Alyosha says, “I’m glad you’re here.”

“Yes,” Arrell says again. He looks at their hands, tangled together. “So am I.”


End file.
